Now Departing is your source for all things travel: deals, breaking news and trip reports. I am the consumer travel reporter for the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, a dream job for someone who has been planning trips since a family visit to Walt Disney World in eighth grade. I'm happiest when I'm hopping on an airplane to visit family, friends or a new city, or helping others plan a trip. In 2011, my kids and I vow to head to the airport, destination unknown. We'll check the departures board and buy last-minute tickets (or cash in miles) to somewhere we've never visited.

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Southwest Airlines computer woes continue

Southwest Airlines' website problems are still vexing many customers today. There are continued reports of trouble accessing frequent flier accounts, booking tickets, missing flight credits and reports of long hold times at the airline's reservations centers.

Southwest's Facebook page is still being bombarded with mostly negative comments from the airline's "fans." Some are almost apologetic in their criticism but say they have had enough. Many wish Southwest would publicly say more about the issues and the estimated time everything will be resolved.

The problems started early yesterday when Southwest debuted its new Rapid Rewards program. A separate computer outage later in the day temporarily crashed its airport systems and agents had to issue manual boarding passes.

I was finally able to log into my Rapid Rewards account today after several failed attempts on Tuesday. It correctly lists my "A List'' status, which gives you early boarding and other perks after you fly a lot, and shows my previous flight credits. I was able to book a flight while logged into my account but could not retreive the information a few minutes later. Southwest said that is a remaining troublespot.

Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger gave this update in an e-mail this morning "We've implemented some fixes to stabilize the issues, and we continue to have all hands on deck to work through any remaining issues with the conversion. We apologize for any frustrations oru customers and members experienced during the transition to the new program.''

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